Fairly Symmetrical

May 2004 Archives

05/31/2004

Being the wild and crazy kids we are, Jen and I started off our mad, mad Memorial Day by taking in a movie--Shrek 2--at the local cinema. (Side note: the local cinema has very nice chairs, but is not steeply canted enough for my taste. I give it a B+, with a nudge for its relative cleanliness, but docked because they refused to sell Jen a student ticket.)

Anyway, the movie itself. It is as all the reviews have said: Ha ha, funny movie, tries too hard, story isn't as good as the first one, and Puss in Boots steals all of his scenes. (To be fair, it is quite hilarious in parts, and well worth the inflated ticket prices.) Also, there's a scene where the fairy godmother breaks out Bonnie Tyler's I Need A Hero. And stay through the first round of credits.

Saturday, we got glasses. See Jen's page for photos, if you dare.

Sunday. I don't really remember what we did Sunday. Oh. We acquired two new lamps for the living room. And watched approximately 400 contiguous episodes of Law and Order: SVU (the first season was really terrible, I'm talking Sex and the City Season 1 terrible here). And grilled out, with some really good chipotle-flavored marinade.

Today we took the dogs to Bull Creek Park and went wading (/swimming). Charlie swims like a crocodile; he's heavy enough that only the top half of his head is above water. It's mildly amusing. Then we watched--surprise--more Law and Order (starting to get into better episodes now). And killed some heathen infidels in Age of Mythology.

So now there are only 4 more days till Jenny jets away to lollygag in the sun in Louisville for three weeks, and 4 days is never long enough for my taste. I could always leave here Friday afternoons about 4 and get to Louisville 19 hours (counting the time change) later, and then do it in reverse on Sunday, but that seems like Jenny will veto it. :-P

Hope everyone had a good MDay; I know a lot of people who spent the weekend dodging funnel clouds. Here's hoping nobody caught one.

05/22/2004

I am--finally--declaring victory over Arborio rice. Tonight I cooked Vegetarian Jambalaya (substituting Arborio rice for the farro--incidentally, if you do want to use farro, note that it's called "spelt" in North America--otherwise the nice people at Central Market will be terribly confused) which turned out very well. Maybe Fiona's visit was the final thing I needed to master the arborio. :)

Jenny says: "Very, very tasty. Two thumbs up."

Oh, by the way: this recipe makes a lot of jambalaya. Use a big pot and invite company. :)

05/20/2004

There's an article up on MSDN titled Can ?Star Wars: Episode III? be saved? worth reading if you're a fan of the trilogy (and by "the trilogy" I mean the three movies made in '77, '80, and '83). The basic recommendations?

I probably will have little time or inclination to update the rest of this week (stop laughing), so all my adoring fans will have to make do with this.

Yes, we spent most of last weekend and yesterday cleaning the house from top to bottom, and breaking it from bottom to top. This latter bit is really a very annoying trend. We just "finished" the front yard (well, sort of, it still needs about 327 plants and a new ledge to replace the rotted one--but at least it looks nice!) The new patio furniture makes me very happy, especially as the weather has been Austin Beautiful™ lately. I've been dying to take a good book and a beer out on the back porch after work, and just have not had the time. But Fiona is coming in tonight, and Les Thursday, and I'm sure there will be plenty of hanging around in the backyard drinking. :) And then of course there's the BBQ this weekend. I do have pictures of the house, particularly of the very pretty wooden swing (currently swimming in white flowering vines), the garden (which is fast approaching Eden proportions--or at least starting to produce little baby tomatoes and bell peppers), and the new deck furniture. I will try to post those tonight.

Work. Work is stressful. Critical projects have a way of self-destructing at 9pm lately, and this trend is also very annoying. I have one project right now that reminds me of those Engineer Days at school where people would compete to create harnesses in which eggs could be dropped and expected hoped to survive. Except that this particular egg fires itself downwards at very high velocity and contains about a tablespoonful of nitroglycerin, and so at this point it has been fitted with parachutes, streamers, airbags, jet thrusters, alarm sirens, and even springs to bounce it back up into the air when it hits. It hasn't crashed in about a week, which is an improvement. (This project is a living lesson in the hell of supporting legacy software; all of our other projects continue to behave themselves.) If nothing else, this is great practice in troubleshooting recurring problems. :-P